One sinister day when the slate-hued clouds hung low, and the valley was
dark and drear with its dense leafless forests, when the mountains
gloomed a sombre purple and no sound but the raucous cawing of crows
broke upon the sullen air, Lillian's paroxysms of grief seemed to reach a
climax. Their intensity alarmed her two companions, and the forced
composure and latent strength of character of Gladys were tried to the
utmost to sustain her own equilibrium. But as the afternoon wore away
Lillian grew calmer, though her mind never deviated from the subject. The
trio had ceased to sit in the large reception hall, for its gun-rack and
rods and reels, its fur rugs, its trophies of sport, its mandolin and
flute and piano, were now pathetically reminiscent of the vanished
presence of its joyous and genial owner. They used instead the small
library which opened from it, where a spacious bay-window gave ample
light in the dreary days, and the big wood fire sent its flash and
fragrance to the remotest corner. It filled with a rich glow the fabric
of the little red coat as the mother held the sleeve to her lips and then
turned it to readjust the cuff creased in folding. "He used to look so
pretty in it. My beauty! My baby! My own!" she cried out in a voice
muffled, half-smothered, by her choking throat. "And he thought it so
fine! He valued it beyond all his other possessions," she continued
presently with a melancholy smile, even while the tears, so bitter that
they stung her cheeks, coursed down her face; for she had begun to find a
languid, sad pleasure now and then in discursive reminiscence, and
Gladys, who knew the little fellow so well, could respond with discretion
and stimulate this resource for the promotion of calm and resignation.
"You remember, Gladys, don't you, how he delighted in these pockets? You
were with me when he first got the coat. He doubted if he were really
going to have pockets, because there were none in his little white
reefer. Do you remember how he looked when I lifted the flap--isn't the
embroidery lovely?--and put his dear little hand into his first pocket?
How surprised he was when I showed him this pocket between the facing and
the lining! I wanted him to have enough pockets--he admired them so! He
had never dreamed of finding one here. I told him it was his inside
pocket--he called it his 'shy pocket.'"
"A good name for it, too," commented Gladys. "Nobody would ever think to
find a pocket there."
Lillian had suddenly ceased to speak. She had suited the action to the
word and slipped her own fingers into the pocket. There was something
within. She drew it forth, startled, her pale face all contorted and
ghastly. It was a bit of stone, of white stone, fashioned by curious
nature in the similitude of a lily, wrought in the darkness, the silence
of the depths of the earth. Lillian had previously seen such things; she
recognized the efflorescence of a limestone cavern. She sprang up
suddenly with a scream that rang through the room with the force and
volume of a clarion tone.
"This child has been in a cave!" she shrilled, remembering the raid on
the moonshiners' cavern. "He is not dead. He is stolen, _stolen_!"
The logic of the possibilities, cemented by her renewal of frantic hope,
had constructed a stanch theory. She was reasoning on its every phase.
The coercion of this significant discovery had suggested the truth. "This
coat was left as a blind, a bluff, to cover the tracks of a crime.
Gladys, Gladys, think--_think_!"
But poor Gladys, in her deep mourning gown, all her splendid beauty
beclouded by grief, sadly shook her head, unconvinced. The child had
possibly found the stone, she argued.
"Would he not have shared his joy with every creature in the household?"
demanded Lillian. "Did he ever have a thought that I did not know?"
"It might have been given to him," Gladys sadly persisted.
"Remember his disposition, Gladys, his grateful little heart. He would
have worn us all out, showing the gift and celebrating the generosity of
the giver. How flattered he was, always, to be considered! He never
seemed in the least to care for the value of the thing. He would cherish
an empty spool from a friend's hand. It was wonderful how he loved to be
loved. I feel sure, I _know_, that coat was taken from him; and he is
alive, _stolen_."
And from this conviction she would not depart. It was a folly, a frenzy,
her two friends contended. Its indulgence would threaten her sanity. They
besought her to consider anew. The discovery of such a stone in this
mountain region was altogether devoid of significance. Right reason and
religion alike dictated submission to the decrees of Providence.
These arguments were all thrown away. Neither could urge aught to
restrain her. With a swift strength of gait that seemed amazing to those
who had witnessed her feeble dragging about the house for weeks past,
Lillian flashed through the door, and suddenly there was the keen tinkle
of a bell in the darkening, chill spaces of the unused hall. The other
two, startled, appalled, as in the contemplation of the aberrations of
acute mania, scarcely knowing whether to follow or to call for help,
remained motionless, gazing at each other in pallid agitation, awaiting
developments, of which they could divine naught.
Lillian, however, was perfectly calm as she called up "Long Distance" and
gave the address of Julian Bayne in the city of Glaston--the number of
his office and his residence as well.
The two women in the firelight glanced at each other in mute
significance. Then Lillian urged the operator at Shaftesville to the
utmost diligence. "Find him wherever he is. Send special messenger. Get
him to the 'phone at once. Emergency call! Make them understand that at
the Glaston exchange."
Mrs. Marable, a little, precise, wrinkled old lady, with a brown taffeta
gown and a Marie Stuart lace cap, cherished the traditions of the old
school of propriety, and the controlling influence proved strong even
amidst this chaos of excitements. As Mrs. Royston returned in a state of
absolute exaltation to the fireside, "Lillian," said Mrs. Marable coldly,
"the officers of the law are the proper parties for you to appeal to, if
you are going to pursue this obsession. Why should you call up that--man?
Why don't you call the sheriff of the county?"
"Because I want Julian Bayne. I believe in him! I can trust him! It is
almost like the hand of omnipotence--there is help in the very thought of
him."
There were no more tears. She sat strong, elate, her head held high, her
hands folded calmly on the crape pleats of the black gown she wore for
the child's sake, ready to wait the evening through. But there was a
prompt response. When the telephone-bell jarred out suddenly in the dim
stillness of the hall, Gladys sprang up with a sharp cry, her hands to
her ears, as if to shut out the sound. But Lillian ran lightly out of the
room, and the two heard in wonder the sure vibrations of her clear
composed accents. "Yes, Long Distance, this is Mrs. Royston." Then
suddenly her tones were pervaded with embarrassment: "Oh, Mr. _John_
Bayne.... Oh, the father of Mr. Julian Bayne.... No, no, no commands....
Thank you very much. Only the present address of Mr. Julian Bayne."
Once more the two in the library exchanged a glance expressive of more
than either would have been willing to put into words. For there was a
very definite interval of delay at the telephone, and it would need no
sorcerer to divine that the father might deem that this lady, who had so
signally befooled his son heretofore, had no beneficent concern to serve
with his address. But the old gentleman was evidently the pink of
punctilio. Moreover, Julian Bayne had already proved himself man enough
to be safely chargeable with his own affairs.
"At Crystal?... Thirty miles from Shaftesville?... Telephone exchange
there?... So much obliged! Good-by!"
The bitter disappointment! The torturing delay! Gladys dreaded to witness
their effects on Lillian, baffled at the outset in this miserable
delusion that her child still lived, because of a bit of stone in the
pocket of a coat he had worn. It would debilitate her as completely as if
her belief were founded on cogent reason. But Lillian, with a singularly
fresh aspect, with a buoyant energy, swept into the room after calling up
Crystal, cool, collected, as competent of dealing with delay and suspense
as factors in her plan as if it were some commonplace matter of business,
and naturally dependent on the contingencies which environ the domain of
affairs. The lamps came in and filled the room with a golden glow, as she
sat in a majestic assurance that gave her an aspect of a sort of regal
state. Her hair, ill-arranged, disordered in lying down throughout the
day in her reclining chair, showed in its redundance the splendor of its
tint and quality; her face, lately so wan and lean and ghastly, was
roseate, and the lines had strangely filled out in soft curves to their
wonted contour; her hands lay supple and white and quiet in her lap, with
not a tense ligament, not a throbbing fibre--delicate, beautiful
hands--it seemed odd to her companions to think how they had seen her
wring them in woe and clench them in despair. Her black gown with its
heavy folds of crape had an element of incongruity with that still,
assured, resolved presence, expressing so cheerful a poise, so confident
a control of circumstance. She did not expend herself in protest when at
ten o'clock they besought her to go to bed, to be called should the
telephone-bell ring. Her negation was so definite that they forbore
futile importunacy. She did not even waste her strength in urgency when
they declared that they would keep the vigil with her. She merely essayed
a remonstrance, and, since it was obviously vain, she desisted. She would
not discuss the theme. She had no words. It even seemed that she had no
thoughts, no fears, no plans. She was annulled in waiting--waiting for
the moment, the opportunity to take action. While the time went by, she
sat there as under a spell of suspended animation, fresh, clear, capable,
tireless, silent. The housemaid came in once and mended the fire, but
later Gladys, mindful of the curiosity of servants, forbore to ring the
bell and threw on the logs herself; then sat down to gaze again into the
depths of the coals, flickering to a white heat at the end of the glowing
red perspective, and wonder what was to come to them all--indeed, what
was this strange thing that had already befallen them in the obsession of
this silent woman, who sat so still, so suddenly endued with vigor, so
brilliant with health and freshness, out of a state of mental anguish
bordering on nervous prostration? Was it all fictitious?--and was there
something terrible to ensue when it should collapse? And what action was
incumbent on her hostess, left to face this problem in this lonely
country house in the dead hours of night?